Remembering Dr Usha Nayar

My dear friend Usha died last year in February 2021. I heard about it only today, when I saw a message from her daughter Priya. A very nice website has been created for remembering Usha, her life and her work, where you can find many of her writings. While I process that she is no more, through this post I want to share some of my memories of her.

I had met Usha through an Italian friend, Dr Enrico Pupulin in 1996. At that time, Enrico was the head of the Disability and Rehabilitation (DAR) team at the World Health Organisation (WHO) in Geneva. He was keen to conduct a multi-country research on implementing community-based rehabilitation (CBR) programmes in some urban slum communities. In CBR programmes, disabled persons themselves, family members, and local community persons are trained in providing support to children and adults with disabilities. Enrico wanted to see if this approach would work in the poor communities living in the slums.

Enrico had gathered some really committed persons from seven countries for this research, including Fr Alex Zanotelli from Nairobi, Kenya and Dr Eduardo Scannavino from Santarem, Brazil. Usha was also one of them. In those days days she was the professor of child and adolescent health at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) in Mumbai, and together with her husband Chandran, she was also the founder of a voluntary organisation called Smarth, which was active in some slum areas such as Bhiwandi and Dharavi areas in Mumbai. I was asked to coordinate that research project.

Over the next 10-12 years we met many times. In 1999, we were together in Brazil. In 2001, we all converged in Mumbai, when we visited the Bhiwandi and Dharavi areas. Not long after that visit to Mumbai, Usha told me that Chandran had been diagnosed with a cancer. In spite of all their efforts, he died some time later. That was a difficult period for their family.

In the following years, we kept on meeting on and off. Usha came to Italy for a couple of workshops. Then we were both involved in the organisation of an international workshop in Helsinki, Finland. Usha also did the compiling of responses for an international survey on disability and rehabilitation for the WHO. Her warmth, humility and humane approach made her an ideal colleague, who was appreciated and loved by everyone.

Some more years later, another difficult period for Usha came when some persons from their voluntary organisation accused her of improper use of the donors' funds. Though all the financial controls showed that the funds had been used properly and no evidence of any wrong-doing was found, it took a toll on her. Even more unfortunately, it led to a decline and then closure of that organisation which she had started with Chandran.

In August 2012, as she reached 65 years, she retired from TISS as a senior professor. Few days later, in September, she left India and came to the USA, where she started a new phase of life as a professor in the New York State University. It also meant that she could be closer to her daughter.

Once we were sitting together and talking, I don't remember in which country it was, when I had told her about some personal set-back which was worrying me at that time. Usha had told me, "Have faith in God, sometimes what you see as a set-back, can become an opportunity for a new direction in life." Then she had told me about an episode from her own life. She had completed her gradutation, post-graduation and PhD from Allahabad university and she was very keen to have a job in that university. "The job that I had wanted so much, it was not given to me, it was given to someone who had family ties to some big-wigs", she had said, "I was so disappointed, I felt that my life was over and I will not achieve anything in life. Some time later, there was an opportunity in TISS, I applied and was successful. If I had not had that set-back in Allahabad, I would not have had the good fortune to work in TISS. Only afterwards I understood that God works in different ways." I still remember those words.

Over the last couple of years, Usha had also become more active with Yoga and the teachings of Upanishads, which had long been my area of interest as well. We had sometimes exchanged messages through Facebook and I had told her that I looked forward to an opportunity for talking about spirituality with her.

Instead, destiny had other plans. In February 2021, she died a couple of days after receiving a Covid vaccine, but I never heard about it. A few months later, after the second dose of a Covid vaccine, even I developed a cardiac arrhythmia, which took a few months to improve. My doctor in Italy said that it was probably a coincidence and not due to the vaccine. Ever since the pandemic started, health sertvices have worsened and there is no way to know for sure. However, no one can deny that so many of our lives have been changed by that pandemic.

Dear Usha, perhaps one day we shall meet and have our discussion about spirituality on the other side and laugh about it. Goodbye my friend, I am glad that our paths crossed.

    

Searching for the past in Chennai

During a recent visit to Chennai, a walk along the Marina beach took me to the ancient Parthasarthy temple and to a search for a long-lost childhood friend. This post is about that walk and my search.

My childhood friend

Nani (Narayan), my childhood friend, used to live in a multi-story building inside the area known as NPL, while we were living in Double Storey flats in New Rajendra Nagar in Delhi. His family home was in Chennai, which I had visited a few times.

The last time I had met him was in Delhi, probably around 2001-02, when I had come to India. He had just shifted back to Delhi from Chennai. Since then we had lost contact. Partly it was my fault - I had not looked for him during my visits to India. I had lost his old telephone number and I didn't have his email. I looked for him on facebook but didn't find him. Every now and then I wondered about him.

A memory from the past

Few weeks ago, I was back in Chennai after more than 20 years. One afternoon I was looking at the Google Map when I noticed "Parthasarathy temple" that was not very far from my hotel. The last time I had visited Nani's house in Chennai must have been about 30 years ago, but I was sure that it was right in front of the Parthasarathy temple. I remembered the name of the temple because it was also his father's name.

Parthasarthi temple is the oldest temple of Chennai, built around 8th century CE. Nani's family house in front of it, had also looked very old. Once I had stayed in that house for a few days and remembered its intricately carved wooden doors and a wooden balcony around the central courtyard.

As I remembered my old visit to that house, I decided that I will go to that temple and see if I could find his old house. Perhaps some neighbours will be able to give me news about him, I thought.

The walk at Marina Beach

I took an auto to the Gandhi statue on Marina beach. It was sunset time and the beach was crowded with people.

I started my walk towards the Parthasarathy temple with the help of Google Map on my cellphone. I passed in front of the Vivekanand house, the house where Swami Vivekanand ji had stayed for some time after his return from the US.

I am an admirer of Vivekanand and would have liked to explore that place and its museum but it was becoming dark, so I decided to continue my walk.

A short walk brought me to the Anne Besant street with her statue in a small park at the street corner. Parthasarathy temple was nearby according to the Google Maps.

Reaching the Parthasarathy temple

A small side street brought me to the temple pond. Though I had visited that place and even stayed there right next to that pond, I had no memory of it. I even had difficulty in recognising the temple. The Gopuram of the temple seemed much taller compared to how I remembered it. All the area in front of it, including an long entrance with a row of pillars was surrounded by an iron grill, looked completely different. There were small shops all around and it was full of devotees and visitors.

In my memory it was a quiet street, there was no long covered entrance in front of the temple, there was just an old broken wall. At that time, there were no shops on that street, but just old houses on the two sides. I went all around the temple a couple of times, but could not recognise anything. I tried asking to some older looking shopkeepers, but no one could tell me anything.

After about 15 minutes of looking around, I was almost ready to give up. So I went inside the temple and even inside it seemed different from how I had remembered it. They used to have a rath-yatra with hundreds of devotees filling that street, I remembered.

While coming out of the temple, I had a flash of memory about the address of the old house. It was hiding somewhere there in my head. I checked the numbers on the houses. Number 25, my friend's house, was there but now it was a marriage hall. It looked completely different from the house of my memories.

Outside the marriage hall, I saw a board on the side, with a telephone number. I thought that I will talk to the hall owner and ask him, perhaps he would know about the previous owners of this house. However, my call went unanswered. Dejected, I thought that it was time to go back to my hotel.

Call from the marriage hall owner

I was near the temple pond, looking for an auto, when my telephone rang. It was the hall owner calling me back.

"When did you buy that house?" I asked him.

"Who are you? Why do you want to know?" He asked me suspiciously.

So I explained that it was the house of an old friend and that I was looking for him.

"I have Nani's telephone number, he lives in Delhi", the hall owner told me.

"Wow!" I had found my friend, I was overjoyed, "Can you please SMS me his mobile number?"

The man promised to send me the number and then while closing the phone casually mentioned, "Nani's father still lives in that house, there is a small residential part on the side of the marriage hall, he has a room there."

"What? Uncle is still alive?" I was flabbergasted. Uncle had retired in the 1980s, so he must be more than 90 years old, probably closer to 100 years.

Meeting Nani's father

The hall owner had explained and this time I had no difficulty in finding the small grilled door on the side, leading to a corridor and to a few rooms. My heart thumping with excitement, I went to uncle's room. His door was open and he was sitting near the TV, busy watching it. I knocked on the door, went inside and touched his feet. "Uncle, you remember me? I am Sunil, Nani's friend."

He looked at me and smiled, "Yes, I remember you. Come sit here."

He remembered me! Suddenly I was laughing and crying at the same time, feeling like a child once again.

We talked about old times. Nani has a son and a daughter. I had seen his son Ravi as a baby, but I had never seen his daughter. My friend's elder brother, Cheenu, was no more, he had died six years ago. Cheenu's wife and daughter now live in Hyderabad.

Uncle called Nani on his mobile and we spoke. He lives in NOIDA. When I go back to Delhi, I am going to see him.

Finally

Some times crazy ideas lead to good things. I am so glad that on that day when I saw Parthasarathi temple on the Google Map, I decided to go and search for my friend's old house.

***

Our Family - The Four Legged Kind

A wonderful Guest post by Madhu Kamath

***
A few weeks back I read Gerald Durrelli’s delightful book “My family and other animals”. It put me in a rewind mode, sending me down memory lane forty years back when I had my initiation into the world of four legged ones.

Sweety and Kaloo were my in-laws’ and hubby’s pet Lhasa Apsos gifted to them by Laotian friends. When I got married in 1973, they had been with the family for more than four years. My mother-in-law had passed away the previous year after a brief illness. I had been an occasional visitor earlier but despite the fact that I had become a family member, Kaloo was suspicious of me. The moment he saw me touch something, he would pounce on me. Sweety minded her own business. I had to be cautious about my movements and that kept me tense. Till that day four months later …

I had taken leave from school as I wanted to visit my gynaecologist. She had confirmed I was expecting but off and on I was getting mild cramps. After my husband and father-in-law left for office, as I got up to lock the door, I went blank and fell. It took me a moment to get up and lie down. The cramps had suddenly become unbearable and I was alone! Well, not really! Both Sweety and Kaloo jumped on the bed, emitting barely audible whines and sat on either side, looking at me mournfully. With tears in my eyes, I put my hands on their heads. I was pleasantly surprised that Kaloo did not mind. May be I was half expecting it as I had seen his affection for the other family members. He had finally accepted me although under distressing circumstances.

When the pain subsided a bit, I called out to our landlady downstairs who promptly got a cab and took me to a nursing home. I was undergoing a miscarriage. She stayed with me till my husband and father-in-law arrived. The good soul was always there for us in need.

Although Sweety and Kaloo had been there for four years, Sweety had never had a litter. A few months later we were surprised to hear sounds from our quilt. We woke up to find Sweety and six new born pups all over our quilt.

The previous night, she had been moving restlessly all over the house, whining. We thought she had a tummy upset and tried to comfort her with a hot water bottle. She was so hairy that no one noticed she was pregnant. When she sat, it was difficult to make out which was her front and which back. She looked like a huge, fluffy black ball.

The pups were so entertaining. Every afternoon, when I returned from school, it took me at least a few minutes to enter the house because the moment I unlocked and opened the door, all of them would gather around my feet, followed by their proud parents. Sweety started avoiding them when they started teething because their teeth hurt her, she could not nurse them any more.

We had a large circle of friends and finding homes for the pups was no problem. A litter of five and another of 4 came in the next one year and needless to say, there were more puppy seekers than the number of pups to be adopted. Our pets’ curiosity about the new family members lasted only a few curious sniffs when our elder daughter was born in 1975. As she grew Sweety became her best friend and playmate. Ajju, her grandpa, called her Bukul. We never asked him why. Bukul sounds sweet, doesn’t it? By the way, in their mother-tongue, it means tomcat. The way our association with four-legged beings grew over the years, her pet name seems significant.

Now ours is a family that loves travelling. When Ajju was travelling, we used to stay put. When we had travel plans, Ajju would be there to be with the pets.

As the months went by, Kaloo, inexplicably became vicious. With a small child in the house, we had to be extra careful. Sweety kept herself confined under the bed or the sofa. Kaloo bit Ajju as well as my husband. Both had to take a full course of injections after we took him to a veterinary hospital. We were advised to get him put to sleep. It was a sad day for all of us. The medication he was getting at the hospital was not helping calm him. His left eye had come out of the socket and he looked wild. Baffled by the change in him, Ajju insisted on getting tests done. He had contracted rabies despite getting tests done. He had contracted rabies despite getting his annual shots.

Sweety also left us in a year’s time. She seemed to be fine, her usual self. She just crawled under the couch, let out a loud sound, ostensibly her last breath, and that was it. The house felt so empty!

Ajju, too, went suddenly when Meghna, our younger daughter was four months old. A massive heart attack when he was getting ready to go up to his room after a hearty dinner of his favourite fish curry and rice, took him away from us.

With Ajju no more, we could not think of keeping another pet, for, there would have been no one to look after it, when we were to travel.

***

In 1993 we moved from Delhi to Hyderabad, leaving Bukul there to complete her graduation.

Meghu got admission here in class X. One day as I entered the garage to switch on the motor to boost water, I saw four kittens quickly scurry under the wooden boxes stacked there. And then I saw the mother! She spat at me to keep her babies safe from me. We had no idea this family of five had been in our garage. Gradually, they started coming out and befriended us, treating the whole house as their own.

A few days later another cat (we named her Mausi) coolly stepped inside our garden and she her two kittens also made our house their home. And then came Chutki, all by herself, spending long hours on the swing we had in the verandah. We had names for all of them but after all these years, we remember only wink-eye and Satan; the first because it always seemed to be winking and the latter because we changed its name from Satin to Satan when we realised it was a male. Surprisingly , one by one, all of them disappeared in the next few weeks. It was as if they had a premonition of what/who was to come!

Bukul used to come home during vacations and one such visit, just a few days after the last of the cats disappeared, we were about to go out in the evening, when she saw a black rag near the main door. As she bent to pick it up, she jumped up with a shriek. It was a new born pup, black and brown. Tiny, barely able to move and bleeding from the rectum. Where had it come from?

Thankfully we knew of a vet in the neighbourhood and rushed to him with the pup. He treated him and refused to charge us for the treatment. The pup was soon out and about, prancing, chewing socks, shoe laces and eating well. Needless to say, we could not have left him out on the road.

We had to keep on telling him, “Don’t do this, don’t do that.” With all the don’t do’s in the air, we ended up naming him Dhondu. He grew up to be a handsome, loving, much loved family member. The most endearing thing about him was putting his chin on our knee when he wanted what we were eating, imploring!

One evening when Meghu had taken Dhondu for a walk, she heard a whining sound coming from some bushes. On closer look, she found a tiny brown pup probably trying to feel the presence of its mother but not being able to find it. We brought it home and gave it milk with a dropper. Its eyes hadn’t opened and it looked doped. The vet confirmed it was a female and named it Dopey. Like Dhondu, Dopey also stayed. He was five and she, may be ten days old.

Babli was our colony dog. Apart from us, two other families used to feed it. It was amazing how, whenever she had a litter, it used to be raining. Thus for every litter she produced, our garage came in handy. After the 5th or the 6th (not sure!) we got her sterilized.

In the last litter, Babli had three male pups. Meghu named them Pumpkin, Munchkin and Coffee. They too would have ventured out with their mother but father dear had a wish! He wished to keep the white one, Munchkin, for himself. His reasoning - “Bukie has Dhondu, Meghu has Dopey, what about me?” Amusing! A fifty two year old sounding like a kid.

To let you in on a touching family trait … it all started with the time when father dear himself was a young child. His mother was no less an animal lover. They had a dog and a cat, both got along well and were looked after by them. Tiki and Tik-Tik sure had loving hands and hearts to care for them. So, you see! It runs in the family.

And thus Munchy stayed. Babli had free access to our house to come and play with him. We gave away the other two compassionate families after Babli stopped nursing them.

Now Dopey did not trust anyone. Not even us. God knows what trauma she must have endured when she was alone in the bushes. The day after we found her, we took her to each and every house in the neighbourhood to look for her mother and her siblings, if any, but in vain. Still, we all existed under the same roof, in a some what peaceful co-existence, wary of her snapping at anyone who came close to her.

Dhondu left us when he was 11, afflicted by age related ailments. Although Dopey growled at anyone who even touched her by chance, she had a way of saying sorry by lowering her head and raising her paw. She lived to be 13.

***
And then came additions of the feline kind to our family when Bukie found a tiny kitten, eyes not yet open, almost in the middle of the road. She brought it home and fed it with a dropper. Fortunately, we have a gate separating the ground floor and the first floor so the dogs would not be able to reach the cat. She was named Daisy.

Daisy started going out on her own and stayed out, for long hours, but by the time we started thinking of getting her spayed, it was too late. One night she got into one of the cupboards in our ground floor bedroom and delivered a male and a female kitten. Our grand daughter Aari was delighted. Her soft toys and dolls took second place. Chutki and Bheem (that’s what she named them) became her companions. The two used to roam around with dear mom and occasionally brought back mice to devour. That was the only problem we faced with them.

Tragedy struck when Bheem came under a vehicle and got crushed. No one saw how it happened. I saw his inert body covered with a newspaper outside our house. We burried him in the small mud patch in our garden. Aari missed him the most.

There was also Yuki who appeared out of no where and used to sit behind the fridge. She disappeared as suddenly as she had appeared.

We got Chutki spayed well in time but another tragedy was waiting for us. My husband, Meghu and Aari had taken her to the vet a day after her surgery, when Meghu, realising that she was urinating, put her down to prevent herself from getting wet. The moment she put her down, Chutki took off like lightening, jumped over a wall and disappeared. In the growing darkness, they were not able to locate her. The vet’s staff also failed though they searched high and low. She was wearing a huge cone shaped E-collar round her neck, so she must have been noticed, we hoped. The next day, Bukie, Meghu and Aari went back to enquire in the neighbourhood but with no luck. That is how we lost Chutki. We still hope that she is safe wherever she is.

Aari is great friends with Daisy also, the occasional scratches not withstanding. Another small baby kitten Aari noticed outside our house was infested with ticks and fleas and her breathing was very shallow. We took her to the vet. He put her on a drip but was doubtful of her survival. The poor thing breathed her last in Bukie’s arm later that night. She too, rests in peace in our mud patch.

Life carried on with Munchy downstairs and Daisy upstairs. In April this year (2013), on hearing mournful mewing from some where around, Bukie and Aari went in search and found three kittens, a couple of weeks old, scrawny, but moving around, at the back of the vacant house next door. For a couple of days we fed them milk there but doing that several times a day was very tedious so we brought them home.

Meghu’s bedroom was lying vacant as she is posted overseas, so with a food bowl, litter tray et al, that’s where we lodged them. Aari took it upon herself to mother them and named them Kittoo, Grey and Minnie. She treats them like her own babies and spends a lot of time talking to them. Of course, she does not mind getting scratched.

Soon after we brought the latest additions home, we got them their shots. Just like Daisy had started going out on her own, we assumed that these three will do the same. But no. Whether we lock up Munchy in the bedroom and let them roam around or put them in the bedroom with the windows open, they rarely go out for more than ten minutes.

Coming back to the meaning of Bukul’s name assuming such significance, we are convinced that some unknown factor was at play when her Ajju gave her that name. After all, it was she who was instrumental in bringing the helpless Daisy home. Her daughter Aari pointed out the presence of the dying kitten to her. It was she who first heard the piteous mewing of the three siblings who have now been with us for almost eight months. Connects? Doesn’t it?

There is a tom cat roaming around in our colony. A few days back it attacked Kittoo near our main door. Bukul rushed out and drove it away. Male cats are known to kill male kittens so we are really scared. Minnie will soon be able to conceive. Must get them all spayed. There isn’t room for more additions. Sorry, house full!

***

Homelands of my heart

The angst for the far away homelands that emigrants carry in their hearts has been a constant theme for films, fiction and memorials, especially over the past couple of decades as globalization has spread. "Immaginary Homelands" by Salman Rushdie (1992) was part of expressing this angst.  Pico Iyer's talk "Where is home" on TED is another articulation of the feelings of rootlessness. Pico explains that rootlessness is not just angst, it can also be a pleasure, freeing you to decide and choose your homelands.

If you have not yet watched Pico's talk, I strongly recommend it. He is a wonderful speaker with an evocative style.

Pico's talk has two main threads that he uses to weave a word-web of memories, experiences and emotions. First thread is a question asked by others, "where are you from?", and the second is about our own feelings of what defines a home for us. In his talk, Pico often moves between these two threads, implying that both are inter-related.

After watching his talk, I kept on thinking about it. My feeling is that the two threads are not really inter-related in the way Pico seems to suggest. If I ask myself Pico's question, "where is home?", I would not think of the question, "where are you from?", I would ask other questions.

WHERE ARE YOU FROM?

It is the question asked by the new "others", often when we meet them for the first time.It is probably as old as the times when humanity started its journey from Africa and spread to different parts of the world.

In most parts of the world, before the industrial revolution and urbanization, only a tiny percentage of persons ever left the places where they were born. In their life times, at the most they could have hoped to make a few trips to the nearest town. Almost invariably, people married persons from the same region, if not the same village. They spoke the same languages, ate the same food, prayed to the same gods and celebrated the same festivals.

This belonging to the the "birth-place" found common expressions. For example, if Indian traditions forbade crossing of the seas, Italians had sayings like "Moglie e buoi dei paesi tuoi" (Wife and buffaloes should be from your same village). I am sure that different other cultures had similar ideas.

Thus, in those times, when you met new persons, it made sense to ask "where are you from?", because you knew everyone there was to know and you rarely met new persons. With this one question, you were asking many different questions - to which place do you belong? where were your mother and father born? which city/village is linked to your family?

Today the world is profoundly different. Often you do not have the time to listen to the complicated answers to the question "where are you from" and it does not make any difference to you.

Today, even if you never leave your home country, internal migrations are a constant part of urban lives and increasingly, even the rural lives. More than ever before in the history of humankind, people from different cities can get married, have children in different cities, send those children to schools and colleges in different cities, and find work and move to different cities in their life times. Thus, emigrants or natives, it has become harder to answer this question "where are you from?".

You no longer have the name of one place to answer this question. You may need to give long and complicated answers describing your shifting home-cities. I think that most of Pico's talk is about this question. The question of "belonging".

But is this question really about the place identified by your heart as your home, as Pico suggests in the second thread of his TED talk? Not for me.

HOMES OF THE HEART

In his talk, Pico mentions different places, buildings and countries where he has lived at different times in his life. He talks of his schooling in Britain and university in the USA. He also talks of his love for Japan and the burning of the family house in California that had "set him free".

However, people seem to be missing from Pico's world. While he talks of his grandparents' house, he never talks of his grandparents themselves. He never mentions his mother or father or siblings or cousins. He does not talk of his wife, his children. There are no friends of his heart in his speech.

And while reflecting over his talk, I asked myself, how can we talk of our home, without talking about the people we love?

When I had left India, my home was mainly in Delhi, in the rented house where my mother had lived. But parts of my home were also with other family members and close friends. In the past three decades, as our family has spread to different parts of India and some persons have emigrated to other countries, parts of my home have also spread with them. My feelings of "home" are linked to my family.

Over the years, the memories of the intense friendships of adolescence have dimmed and none of those childhood friends is active on the social media or even emails so our contacts are rare - thus today I am not so sure how strong are the links between them and my "home" feelings.

As long as my mother was alive, my strongest feelings of home continued to be linked to her. Today, while I sit in Bologna (Italy) and talk to my sisters on telephone, one in USA and the other in India, I feel at home in that moment. Their voices, and our shared memories are my home.

The voices of some of my cousins are also indelible part of my "home" feelings. Even just to think of them, makes me feel at home.

And, I have my new home, linked to my wife and my son. Strangely, though I have lived for more than two decades in Bologna and we own a house here, in Italy my feelings of "my home" are stronger towards Schio, the town of my wife's family - again, I think that this feeling has something to do with close family members and not so much with the cities themselves.

So, for me, the place that I feel in my heart as my home, has to do with my emotions - feelings of family, love, affection, friendship - and little to do with geography or other things.

And for you, where is the homeland of your heart?

***

The Amitabh encounter

"My father was among the first persons in Allahabad to go against the caste system that was prevailing at that time and is still prevalent in India. He married into a sikh family - my mother was a sikh. He often said that he would like his children and grandchildren to marry persons from different parts of our country. I married a bengali, my brother married a sindhi, my son married a tulu from south India and my daughter is married in a punjabi family."

He clearly liked to talk. He gave long answers to each question of the Italian journalists, explaining everything at great length, sometimes repeating it, to make sure that they understood.

May be it was because he is considerate and knows that in the West, mainstream understanding and knowledge about India are fairly limited. Or may be, he feels that the journalists who come to film related press conferences are not very intelligent, because of his experiences with the press in India, that is forever obsessed with mundane details of the stars' lives? Or, may be it was because he also loves his own baritone voice that can weave magic on the screen?

The attention of mainstream Italian media about India used to be limited to issues like poverty, Sonia Gandhi, spirituality, yoga and Mahatma Gandhi. Other Indian news appeared in Italian news channels, when there were some kind of a disasters or riots. Only over the past decade there have been new additions to these themes, as there are stories of India as an emerging superpower. Increasingly Italian businesses have relocated outside western Europe and Bangalore is one of the symbols for the news stories on "emerging countries are going to take over the world" hype.

We were in one of the meeting rooms of Savoy hotel in Florence, Italy. Selvaggia Velo, the organiser of the River to River film festival had introduced him as "One of the most important icons of Indian cinema, Mr. Amitabh Bachchan."

I was not expecting to see many Italian journalists at the press conference, because Bollywood is still a very niche phenomenon in Italy. To my surprize, the room was almost full with journalists and photographers, representing some of the major Italian newspapers.

Someone had asked him about the future direction of Bollywood films - if they would continue to be formula-driven masala films or there will more of intelligent sensible kind of cinema?

Amitabh started his answer with the often repeated explanation about poor persons' need for a fantasy world to get away from the squallor of their real lives. "Elementary my dear Watson, it is entertaiment, entertainment, entertainment", as Sherlock Holmes would have said.

"In the west there was recognition for the artistic kind of Indian films, while western audience were cynical and even critical about other kind of Indian films because they felt that it was too fantasized and unreal. We have not changed so much, we continue to make both kinds of films, but in the west today perceptions have changed and there is greater recognition of our popular cinema."

"May be today the two kinds of cinemas can be looked at together. After the opening of Indian economy in early 1990s, there is more affluence and a bigger middle class in India. This inlcudes about 350 million persons, who are more educated and can appreciate more intelligent cinema. If they don't like something, they can be very critical", he had added.

Another related question was about the reasons of popularity of Indian cinema in many different parts of the world including in north Africa, middle east and in countries of former Soviet Union.

"Many years ago, I had asked this same question to a moscovite - what do you find in the Indian films? He had told me that it was because when he came out of the cinema hall after an Indian film, he had a smile on his lips and a dried tear on his cheek."

I was never a big fan of Amitabh Bachchan, in the sense that I never went to see a film just because he was in it. I had not seen his first film, "Saat Hindustani", when it had come out. But I remember his small role in Sunil Dutt's "Reshma aur Shera", where he was a gangly awkward young man, very un-hero like deaf and mute guy, who kills newly married Rakhi's husband and sparks off the family feud. It had me feeling a little embarassed as well as a little proud, because I could identify with him. It was the time when I was acutely aware of my thin body, long neck and awkward limbs.

However, I had liked Amitabh in Hrishikesh Mukherjee films like "Anand", where he had played serious middle class characters. But I was more of a Rajesh Khanna fan at that time.

The moment I first saw him when he entered the press-conference room at Savoy, my first thought was about "Anand". "Wow, Babu moshai!", I had said to myself. Immediately after, my second thought was that he was so very thin, almost gaunt and his face showed that he is no stranger to pain and suffering.

Ever since I had known that he was coming to Florence, I had started worrying about the questions I could pose to him. After a lot of thought I had decided that I would have focused about his days in Allahabad and about the literary world of his father. I remembered his joint interviews with Jaya Bhaduri that were published in the Hindi magazine Dharamyug in the 1970s. Those interviews were done by Pushpa Bharati. I wanted to know about those parts of his life.

Amitabh Bachchan is what is called a character actor in Hindi cinema, that means actors who are no longer the main heroes of a film. These actors may play the elder brother or the father or the uncle or friend or the villain. Most of the heroes, when their films stop being successful at the boxoffice, disappear from cinema screens and public memory. Increasingly after the proliferation of private TV channels since the 1990s, they may find work on the TV, hosting shows or acting in TV serials. However a few of them become respected character actors, some times getting important roles in films or even films that revolve around them.

Amitabh had also gone through his days of oblivion after a number of commercially unsuccessful films in late 1980s and then made his come back through a very popular TV show in late 1990s, and then the popularity of his TV show brought him back to the films as a respected character artist.

There have been a number of character actors who had been equally respected in Hindi cinema including Ashok Kumar, Balraj Sahni, Motilal and Pran. Films were made around them. However, Amitabh Bachchan today is considered a bigger icon of Bollywood, probably because of its greater reach in the world due to NRIs and probably because of the greater economic might of Bollywood.

Sitting in Amitabh's press conference, I had suddenly remembered a meeting with Ashok Kumar in Mohan studios in Bombay in 1975. Ashok Kumar was a hero in 1930s-1950s, and during 1960s had shifted to the character roles. My father had been a fan of the "hero Ashok Kumar", for me he was an "old man". At that time, I had identified with Amitabh. To see him in Florence and to think of him as "old", was a reminder of my own white hairs.

I had often wondered about his film on Dharamveer Bharati's novel, "Gunahon ka Devtaa". I remembered seeing some stills of this film that was titled, "Ek tha Chander, ek thi Sudha". The novel was based in Civil Lines in Allahabad where Amitabh was born and had grown up. I had loved that book and I had dreamed of watching that film. Due to some problems, that film was never completed or released. After almost 40 years, I still remember it and I would have loved to talk to him about it.

There were other reasons for my self-identification with Amitabh. My father's family also came from Allahabad. My parents, also a UP Kayasth and a punjabi like his parents, had known his father. I would like to think that we had also shared the world of Hindi literature in our growing up years.

In those Allahabad days, what was the relationship of his father with other literary figures like Mahadevi, Nirala and Dinakar? How did he feel when he walked near that patch of grass where Chandrashekhar Azad was shot down? Did he used to go to Anand Bhawan to play with young Rajiv Gandhi? What he did feel about Nehru? Can he see the punjabi part from his mother's side in his personality? How is that punjabi side different from the UP side?

There were so many questions I would have liked to ask him, but in the press conference there was no time for them.

"My father was a poet, an icon of literature in India", Amitabh had said proudly, talking about his father Harivansh Rai Bachchan many times during the press conference in Florence, "When he was old, every evening he watched one of my films. One day I asked him, what is it in these films that you find so attractive? He said that those films provide poetic justice in three hours, something that does not happen in real life."


"I would like to be treated as a very normal human being, someone who can make errors and mistakes like everyone else. I can't be perfect all the time, but the moment you become a celebrity, everyone expects you to be perfect. If there is any kind of political or moral situation, people want to know my opinion about it, though I may not be qualified to talk about it. And the moment you respond, you are taking sides and there will always be a reaction to everything you do. Why does every body presume that just because you are a celebrity, you are also intelligent to answer all kinds of questions?" Amitabh had said during the press conference.

He was wearing a turtle neck black sweater with a scarf around his neck, and his hair combed and put in place carefully. His hair were clearly dyed but not in the usual jet black dye chosen commonly by men in India. Rather they had shades of dark and light maroon with some grey in it.

Later that evening, when he had entered Odeon cinema, venue of the inauguration of the film festival, crowds had gone berserk, surrounding him, touching him, clapping and whistling for a long time. A group of young Indians and Italians had secretely prepared a flashmob that had burst into a medley of songs and dances inspired from the famous Bachchan films.

Like all his roles in the films, that evening he had played the role of the superstar from India, taking the bows on the stage in a shiney pearly black coat.


As fans and as interviewers, how do we relate to persons we idealize? Is our idealizing, a kind of self-identification?

During the press conference, everything Amitabh said had to be translated into Italian. Thus there were pauses when Manuela, the translator spoke and Amitabh sat there listening. During those gaps, I was looking at his face to see if I could sense his thoughts. Most of the time, he seemed attentive towards the translator and the persons sititng in the room. Only occasionally I thought that there were fleeting glimpses of a brooding man, his eyes serious, as he observed everything around.

When I was young, I used to daydream about being a famous film star. Perhaps most young people had those kinds of daydreams. Looking at Amitabh that day at the press conference, suddenly I felt happy that I was not Amitabh Bachchan.

After the press conference, I wanted to go out in the square, walk around, eat an ice-cream. When you are Amitabh Bachchan you can't do so many things that I take for granted. People asking questions in press conferences is bad enough. I would rather sit on the side asking questions rather than answering questions! People pointing at me and wishing to talk to me all the time, would be a real nightmare. Being famous is a difficult burden to carry.

PS: In Florence someone had asked me if I read Mr. Bachchan's blog and I had to shamefully admit that I had never looked at it. I did look at it after the press conference. He is very prolific and regular at his blog and probably I can find all the answers to my questions on his blog!

***

I am

A lazy morning after busy days that started early in the morning and finished late at night. Sitting in the hotel room in Goiania. I need to take shower and start getting ready for lunch at my friend Deo's home. Lucas, her grandson will come to pick me up in about an hour.

I am thinking of the small girl in Vila Esperança yesterday, who had asked Renata, "If he was born in India, why does he live in Italy?", clearly puzzled by the idea of leaving the place she has grown up in and loved so much, to go and live some where else.

Yesterday I also had a long talk with Pio, who had left his Armani suits and well paid job in Milan to come and live in Goias Velho, to start Vila Esperança, together with Max. That was 22 years ago. I am sure that lot of persons ask him, why did you leave Italy to come and live in Brazil? I didn't ask him that, but the idea that he could understand my feelings of mixed identities, made it easier to talk to him.

French-Libanese writer Amin Maalouf had written in "On Identity":

..someone comes and pats me on the shoulder and says "Of course, of course - but what do you really feel, deep down inside?"

For a long time I found this oft-repeated question amusing, but it no longer makes me smile. It seems to reflect a view of humanity which, though it is widespread, is also in my opinion dangerous. It presupposes that "deep down inside" everyone there is just one affiliation that really matters, a kind of "fundamental truth" about each individual, an "essence" determined once and for all at birth, never to change thereafter. As if the rest, all the rest - a person's whole journey through time as a free agent; the beliefs he acquires in the course of that journey; his own individual tastes, sensibilities and affinities; in short his life itself - counted for nothing. And when, as happens so often nowadays, our contemporaries are exhorted to "assert their identity", they are meant to seek within themselves that same alleged fundamental allegiance, which is often religious, national, racial or ethnic, and having located it they are supposed to flaunt it proudly in the face of others.

Anyone who claims a more complex identity is marginalised. But a young man born in France of Algerian parents clearly carries within him two different allegiances or "belongings", and he ought to be allowed to use both. For the sake of argument I refer to two "belongings", but in fact such a youth's personality is made up of many more ingredients. Within him, French, European and other western influences mingle with Arab, Berber, African, Muslim and other sources, whether with regard to language, beliefs, family relationships or to tastes in cooking and the arts. This represents an enriching and fertile experience if the young man in question feels free to live it fully - if he is encouraged to accept it in all its diversity. But it can be traumatic if whenever he claims to be French other people look on him as a traitor or renegade, and if every time he emphasises his ties with Algeria and its history, culture and religion he meets with incomprehension, mistrust or even outright hostility.

Amin Maalouf's words resonate with me. I was born in India and Hindi is my mother tongue. It is the language of all those books in papa's book shelf, that I had started reading as a kid. Nanak Singh, Kishen Chander, Rangey Raghav, Mohan Rakesh, Nirmal Varma .. It is the only language in which I can really appreciate poetry. It is the language of my childhood friends.

English is the language of my logic and reasoning. It is the language of discovering writers from different parts of the world. It is the language of my work. It is also the language that I am most comfortable in writing.

And I dream in Italian, the language in which I talk to my wife and son. Italian is the language I read most now. It is the language that I like using for talking to small babies and dogs and birds and trees.

But Brazilian Portuguese is also my language, as are bits and pieces of French and Chinese. They are all parts of me. Languages, people, friends, journeys, memories, experiences, all are part of me. That is what "I am", if I can borrow the title from Onir's film. My complex identity, that is not always so easy to explain.

Sonali and Roberto story - more details

More than two years ago, in May 2008, I had written an article about the love story of Sonali and Roberto Rossellini. Following the first article, I received many emails from different parts of the world, some of which were from persons who knew other details about the story and shared those details with me. Thus, an updated version of the article was prepared in July 2008.

Over the past two years, my interest in the events linked to Sonali and Roberto story in India during 1956-57 has remained constant and I wish I could write a book on this story from Sonali's point of view. Some months ago, I did write to her daughter to ask if Sonali would agree to meet me, but I have not received any answer.

However, recently I did receive some more information about the days when Sonali and Roberto had come back from India and this post is about that new information.

***

A few months ago, a person shared some letters and other documents of Roberto Rossellini with me and gave me the permission to write about these.

The letters were written in November 1957, around the time when Roberto and Sonali had left India and were living in Paris. It was the time when their daughter Raffaella was born. The handwritten letters written in Italian are addressed to "Aldo and Giuliana", persons probably living in India at that time, who seem to be confidantes and friends with Roberto.

In one letter dated 17 November, Roberto excuses himself for not having written earlier "because he was being followed by journalists and photographers". He also says that he is preparing a return to India in the beginning of December. He mentions some financial problems. At the same time, he is "excited about restarting my life at 51 years".

He awaits anxiously for the arrival of documentary films from India for completing the work. He asks, "what does Jennifer say? .. What does Blitz say? He asks his friends to telephone (Rambir) Haksar to present his (Roberto's) apologies.

In another letter dated 7 December, it seems that Roberto's financial problems are continuing and he writes of selling his car. He seems to worry about gossip, "the truth is that people love to gossip and make things seem more drammatic, even when there is nothing to drammatize..". He mentions lack of news from "our lawyer in Bomaby" and he continues to wait for those "damned documentaries".

He also seems upset about reactions of certain persons "because I have separated from my wife? How does that concern him? ... I believe that people become easily hysterical, without understanding ... I don't think he understood what I had to go through to resolve the questions here."

He mentions a visit to Rome "for the separation from my wife".

Among the other documents that I have received, there are some telegrams from Roberto (in Rome) to hotel Suisse in Delhi. The telegrams mention Rambir Haksar and arrival of Mrs. Selznick (Hollywood actress Jennifer Jones who was married to director David Selznick at that time), who is arriving in India. Roberto asks  in the telegram to make arrangements for her stay in Maidens (hotel in Delhi), avoid publicity and inform Menon so that Jones gets all assitance on her arrival in Bombay airport.

Among the papers, there is also a list of expenses for reimbursement for a total of 910 Indian Rupees, that includes the following items:
7 Rs for taxi on 29th October to film division
6 Rs for taxi for Indira Gandhi on 26 October
20 Rs for taxi to Palam for taking the monkey on 4 November (probably the monkey used in one of the documentaries)

Comments: I think that the expenses for reimbursement covering the period from 22 October to 22 January, relate to the period after Roberto's arrival in India in October 1956, when his love story with Sonali had not yet started or was just starting.

I am not sure about the telegrams concerning Jennifer Jones. Did she play a role in the documentaries made by Roberto in India? Was he planning to make a film with her in India, after completing the documentaries? If so, probably he was underestimating the strength of public scandal in India and didn't imagine that he would have to run away to Euorpe with Sonali? From the letter dated 17 November 1957, it seems that he was still hoping to go back to India in December.

Rambir Haksar, who was assisting Rossellini in India, mentioned in these messages, could be related (?) to P. N. Haksar, who was in foreign service in that period, and later became personal assistant to Ms. Indira Gandhi (?).

Pandit Nehru's daughter Indira, who had married Firoz Gandhi in 1942, had separated from her husband and was living with her father in Teen Murthy during 1956-57. That Prime Minister's daughter travelled in a taxi, is a reflection of those times, when security was not an issue and leaders were closer to the people. Her personal involvement in the supporting Roberto's visit, also reflects on the importance given by the Nehru family to Rossellini visit in India.

The letters do not mention Sonali nor the birth of his daughter in Paris in November 1957. This could be an indication of his relationship with Aldo and Giuliana, who were probably more informed about his business issues than personal issues. His mention of gossip in Blitz, shows that he was concerned about the Indian press. Blitz was among the most active Bombay newspapers of that time, protesting loudly about Roberto and Sonali love story, describing it as an attack on India's morality and asking for Roberto's expulsion from India.

***

When I had found that the famous Bengali actor and director Aparna Sen was coming to River to River film festival in Florence, I had immediately thought that she would know details about the Sonali and Roberto story. She is daughter of Chidanand Dasgupta, who was close friend of Satyajit Ray, and since Sonali's ex-husband, Harisadhan Dasgupta was also colleague and friend of Satyajit Ray, my conclusion was they all must have known each other. In 1956-57 when it had all happened, Aparna must have been 11-12 years old, so I had thought she will remember things from that period.

Aparna did confirm that her father and Harisadhan knew each other. She said that as a child, Raja, Sonali and Harisadhan's elder son, used to come to their house. But she didn't know much else. There hadn't been much discussion about this subject in her family in that period, and Harisadhan's family had been very discreet about the whole issue, so she couldn't say much about it.

You can imagine my disappointment!

***

Invisible threads

My wife says that potato chips are bound to each other by an invisible thread. If you pick up one, the next one comes up automatically. Perhaps, thoughts are the same. Only that, one thought leads to another completely different. Thus, thinking in terms of potato chips, potato chip leads to a jalebi, that goes to a samosa and so on!

As I pedal my bicycle in the morning to the work, most of the time riding the bicycle and negotiating the traffic happens in automatic mode and my mind meanders in different directions. I am convinced that some of those ideas are terrific but the problem is that by the time I reach office and want to write them down, I can't remember most of them!

That is how it was this morning. I was pedalling furiously. Behind our house, they are cutting deep gashes in the green fields. A new road is going to come up there. Further ahead, a new access to the highway is flattening the existing hills and building new hills. Even further, the railway tracks are being moved so that the high speed train lines can be put in their place. Our part of the city is changing face!

The side effect is that the road is full of dust and with the strong humidity in the night, every morning my bicycle wheels raise up drops of dusty glue that sticks to my pants.

And I was thinking about the Anarchytect post I had read in the morning about buildings, spaces, layouts. For a lot of things, I realise that I am very superficial. Buildings are part of those things. I mean, a building is a building, full stop. Thinking of spaces as something alive, that you mould and shape like dough for making chapattis, seems kind of strange. Seeing the landscape around our house changing in front of us, I know it is true but I still keep on believing that the landscape is something physical, fixed, unchangeable, so why think about it!

Another of these things is art. I mean, you watch a nice painting and instinctively you know whether you like it or not. What need is there to dissect it, analyse it?

You are wrong of course, you just need to read the Hindi article of Om Thanvi on Starry Nights of Van Gogh in MOMA in New York to understand how wrong you are. There are eleven stars he writes. The bottom most star, its luminous white contrasting with the wonderful yellow of the moon is probably the morning star that Van Gogh saw from the window of his sanatorium and wrote about it to Theo, his brother. The spire of the church in the background is more like the Dutch churches of Van Gogh's childhood and not the French churches surrounding his sanatorium. The cypress tree in the left rising up like a peacock feather, is it a death wish? Van Gogh did die a few months after making this painting.

Once you read that article of Om Thanvi, it changes the way you look at this painting. It is no longer a question of if you like it or not, you can understand it and see things that you did not see earlier.

Suddenly my thoughts about starry nights and Van Gogh were interrupted by a new song in my earphones. I religiously put on my ipod when I start from my home but I hardly ever remember the songs I have heard during the journeys. But this song was great and different. Ajnabi Shehar it is called and it is from Jaaneman, I found out later. The singer, perhaps Sonu Nigam, sounded just like Rafi did in those wonderful songs from a film called Jhuk Gaya Aasman! It had came out in 1968 and had music by Shanker Jaikishen and had Rajendra Kumar and Saira Banu in it. Not that I liked Rajendra Kumar or Saira banu. There is no rational explanation for this jump from Ajnabi Shaher to Jhuk Gaya Aasman, but that's how thought are. Unpredictable and irrational.

What was the story of JGA like? It had something to do with death. I thought furiously, weaving the bicycle between cars stuck in a traffic jam. Rajendra Kumar dies in it, but then comes back. Actually there were two Rajendra Kumars. One poor and nice, in love with Saira Banu. The other rich and bad. The bad one was supposed to die but by mistake, Yama kills the young and poor. By the time they realise the mistake, his body has been cremated or whatever, so the good one goes in the body of the bad one. I had seen it on a black and white TV in the prehistoric days of Indian TV.

JGA had same story as of the Warren Beatty film, Paradise lost or can wait or something like that! This last bit of knowledge is fairly recent that Bollywood had started copying long time ago. But JGA had lovely songs and this song from Jaaneman reminded me of it - except that it is better, having strange interludes between the stanzas, changing the music styles completely each time.

While trying to think of the Jhuk Gaya Aasman songs, I braked in front of a truck of leaves-collectors in the park, that was blocking the path. By now all the trees in the park are naked with skinny arms and the beautiful golden, yellow, kathai, burnt siena of autumn leaves has been replaced by a rotting mass on the ground that sticks to your shoes and to bicycle wheels, making a squashing sucking sound as you walk on it. The leaves-collectors looked like ghost-busters from the film of the same name, with a motor in their backpack and holding thick tubes blowing hissing air like giant earthworms, pushing the sticky gooey mass towards the suction pump of the truck. Leaves-ghost-busters they are, picking up dead leaves, I thought.

Can trees have ghosts too? I had arrived in the office and so the question remained unanswered and like the last dream of the morning, it also slowly dissipated into nothingness.

***

Journeys and People: Together in the beehive

The train journeys used to take for ever and the preparations started days in advance. Letters were written for the friends on the way, who were going to host us in their homes for a night or two. Holdalls were prepared with blankets and gaddas, thin mattresses filled with cotton, and we pulled on the straps till they all rounded up like footballs. Biji, my grandmother, prepared a big basket of puris and fried potatoes along with mango and water chestnuts pickles for the journey.

Going to Hyderabad needed two nights and we stopped on the way in Bhopal. Going to Alipur Dwar in the north-east took three nights and we stopped on the way in Lucknow and Siliguri.

In the second class compartment of the train with three tyres, train seats were wooden planks and best was to have the top berth, because then you could go up and forget about the others. The bottom berth was where everyone sat while the middle berth was kept closed till it was time to go to sleep.

As you entered the compartment you immediately measured the others sharing the space with you. Were their faces smiling or were they sour faced? How did they react to, "Uncle, can I put this here?" And then soon everyone beamed with relief since the companions of our journey were as anxious as we were to find friendly faces.

Before you knew, everyone was talking to everyone. Children sharing comics or playing ludo or exchanging stories. Women together chatting as long lost sisters from a Manmohan Desai film. Men looking with understanding nods at their wives, and talking about their own things. Didi, bhabhi, bhai saheb, dada ji, aunty ji, soon everyone had found the right words to address the others. From the open window of the train, on a curve you could see the steam rising up from the engine and specks of charcoal came inside the compartment and coated all the faces, got stuck in the hair and went down the neck into the shirts. Chuk chuk chuk, the train went, with the compartments swaying as everyone spoke to everyone else.

And by the time the shared journey came to an end, we knew lot of things about each other, and saying goodbyes was like we were leaving friends. "Write to me", "If you come to Delhi, come to see us", were exchanged with addresses. Of course, we never saw each other again, those other lives were soon forgotten, the memories of faces and names fading quickly with time.

Every time I stopped to think about it, I could see the round ball of earth buzzing like a beehive, hundreds of thousands of small cells next to each other, each with its own family and relatives and lives, each family facing ups and downs, each with children growing up, persons dying, persons getting married. Even if I didn't know about them all, I could imagine them, each family like our own, a little different in somethings, but underneath every thing else, quite similar.

***

Now even in India, there are no steam engines. Those long journeys have become shorter. Here in Europe, even when I do travel on train, mostly I avoid eye contact with others, I almost never offer to others the food I am eating, I hardly ever (actually never) take puris and fried potatoes with me and anyway, most persons have a sandwich and a paper glass with some drink. On the planes, people sitting next to me, some times smile but it stops there. Talking to others that you don't know means "disturbing them" and so everyone looks out of the window or reads or closes eyes and feigns sleep, all lost in their own worlds.

Instead, when the urge to "meet" others comes, I do blog hopping. Like, going to a site like Desipundit and clicking on a blog.

Blog-hopping makes me "meet" other persons. That boy with the red scarf around his neck and his graduation at some IIT, his face full of hope for the future. That lady next to him must be his mother, she looks so proud of him. The girl he is looking at with so much adoration on his face, is she is wife or his girlfriend? There is no picture of his father in that album, why, what had happened? After the pictures, I want to read about the things that boy has written in his blog. And then I click on a link on that blog, then on another link, hoping from one person to another. That girl, she went to India for the first time. Her name is south Indian, perhaps she was born in USA? How does it feel to be surrounded by all Indian faces for the first time in your life, when you realise that you are like everyone else? Jumping between cities and continents. Looking at photo albums and reading about the persons is so much fun. In half an hour, I have gone through three blogs, looked at their pictures, read about their profiles.

Tomorrow, I won't remember them. If not tomorrow, perhaps next week I will forget them. I never remember their names any way. And I never tag them. I like them as they are, random, unexpected, like ships crossing and the passing glimpses into other parallel universes. Sometimes interesting, sometimes ordinary. Sometimes, I don't like them so much.

They are like the companions on a long train journey from my childhood. And I think of the giant beehive, all round the world, every where people with hopes, joys, illnesses, memories, sadness, visting beautiful places, missing places and people. It is good to be part of that beehive.

***

Strange obsession

I can't resist taking pictures of people in uniforms - especially policemen and police-women. It is a kind of obsession. If I am visiting a place and I see police personnel, I always try to take their pictures. Some times, I am a little afraid that they will get annoyed but that hasn't happened so far.

It is a kind of love-hate relationship or rather fear-fascination relationship. Instinctively, I am afraid of people in police dress, if I can avoid, I never speak to them. In my mind they are representing cruel and brute force. It is for this reason perhaps, that I like taking pictures of them with small children, so that the antagonism between this mental image and their actual gentleness creates a contrast in the picture.

In 1960 my father was jailed because of some anti-government protest. From his notes, I know that I and my younger sister, together with my mother, we had gone to see him. I was six years old at that time, yet I can't remember any thing about that visit, nothing absolutely. I don't have any childhood memory of such a visit while I think normally, a visit to a jail would be a very strong memory for a child. Perhaps, that visit is behind my fear-fascination of uniforms?

***

Geneva days

For so many years, I went to Geneva for work. Usually it meant short trips, reaching the hotel late at night, going for a meeting at WHO next day and take a train back to Milan as soon as the meeting finished. I hardly ever went out and Geneva seemed a clean, orderly and dull Swiss city.

Every thing changed in 2001, when I was working at WHO and stayed there for five months. The first month was passed in a hotel, but it was very costly so I looked around for a room. Almost all the weekends, I would travel home to Italy as my son was in school and my family had stayed back in Bologna.

I found a room in Rue Sismondi, close the central station. My American landlord, had an apartment at the top floor. She had occupied the stairs going to the top floor, putting there her book-racks and knick knacks. So the only way to go to the apartment was through the elevators, that opened in a small corridor. On the right was the part where my landlord lived with her Tunisian boyfried. On the right we were three guests in three rooms, sharing the bathroom and the kitchen.

I think of those days at "days of not talking". You respect the privacy of others, you don't look at them or talk to them, was the rule of the house that I quickly learned. If by chance I ever met the other guests, I would mumble a slow Good day or Good evening, the other would nod and that was it. In those four months, I saw only one of those other guests, a sad man in worn out clothes. The other guest's presence was felt but I never saw him. Some evenings, I heard him through the wall, talking on the telephone in German. He sounded like a young man. And, I heard his alarm clock in the morning. It would start ringing every morning at 4.45 AM. It went on ringing for about 15-20 minutes. The first few days were really traumatic. In the quiet of the morning, the alarm bell seemed to be ringing just under my pillow and it made me wake up with my heart thumping. Evidently, his sleep was deeper, since it went on and on. Then, I too got used to it. When it started to ring, I would get up, eat some yogurt, read some book, listen to the old man in the other room wake up and shuffle around. When finally our neighbour woke up and the allarm stopped, I would switch off the light and go back to sleep.

I had heard that Swiss are very particular about noise, pollution, order, etc. but no one ever said any thing to that guy about the allarm!

Rue Sismondi is the area of the sex shops and prostitutes. I was very curious about the things in the sex shop but I was also embarassed to go in and look at them properly. The use of some of the sex toys was easy to understand, but there were some strange looking things as well, and I would look at them from the corner of the eyes and wonder how they were used!

The prostitutes lived around there, and after a few days, I was mumbling "Good evening madam" to them also. Mostly the prostitutes left me in peace, hardly bothering to stop their chatting and laughing when I passed. Once I did have a closer encounter with two of them. I was coming out of the supermarket, when one of them, tall and dark, wearing a flaming red gown, that was open on the side to the top of her legs, she raised up her leg in front of me, stopping me in my tracks. Raising her eyebrows, she smiled provocatively. I panicked. "Je suis marieé", I blurted out, I am married. She laughed loudly and said that she didn't mind. Thankfully, the other girl standing next to her, said something to her and they allowed me to walk away.

One of the prostitutes on our street was an old lady of about seventy. Loud gash of red on her lips, blue colour around her eyes and snow white hair, she looked like a witch, in her spindly legs and leather mini skirt. Who would ever go with her, I wondered but perhaps elderly men preferred her? One early morning, I was supposed to catch a train and it was snowing and really cold. I saw her in her miniskirt, standing under a doorway, shivering and yet, hoping for a client in that terrible cold morning. It was one of the saddest things that I have ever seen.

That stay in Geneva has changed my relationship with the city. Walking along the lake, the science museum, the wonderful botanical gardens are my favourite activities in every visit.

***

Invisible India

GK II and Alaknanda are among the posh colonies of south Delhi. Every house has cars, some have guards outside and the houses are big and beautiful. There is an army of invisible persons, running around like ants, opening doors, collecting refuse, cleaning cars, taking out the dogs to walks, cooking dinners, selling vegetables, repairing all kinds of things, etc. that holds up this world of well to do. If you stay here long enough, you stop seeing them too. I am here only for 5 days and I see them all around, these invisible Indians, with hope in their eyes, an occasional envy and a rarer anger.

***
I was at the Bookworm in Connaught Place, when I saw her. She must have been fifty. Slim, her eyes lined with kajal, her greying hair in a single plait, a tatty worn out purse in her hands. She seemed to be speaking to me. I looked around, I didn't know her. "Pagal hai saab", the boy at the bookshop told me.

"Buy me something", I think that is what she said, in English. "She is educated", the boy in the shop said. She started to dance, moving her hands gently, nodding at me, listening to the music coming from the shop next door.

I came out and she came forward, "Come on, buy me something. It is festival season, everybody is buying something, I also need to buy. I need some shoes. Look at these, these are completely worn out."

I was afraid of her and I hurried away.

"It is disgusting, every body can buy and I am left like this. No one to help me", she called after me.

While I walked away, I was talking to myself. Stupid. Why can't you help her? It is so little for you. Offer her an ice-cream, perhaps? I turned back, but she was gone.

***
I was in auto-rickshaw on Barakhamba road. The construction of metro line is going ahead furiously and the traffic moves in bits and pieces, getting stuck after every few meters. At one such stop, she came. Light blue sari, middle aged. "Please help me buy medicines for my child." She held a paper in her hand. "I am not a begger. I work here but I don't have enough money to buy medicines", she began to cry, "my child will die."

I gave her a ten rupee note. "It is not enough for buying medicines", she said,"I don't want money, help me buy the medicines for two days."

"That is all I have", I said, lying. 10 rupees is just 20 cents. May be I can ask her to come in autorickshaw and go to a chemist shop. The traffic starts moving and the auto moves. Her face streaked with tears looked at me.

***
At Purana Kila (old fort), there is a festival of dances called Ananya. Delhi's chief minister, Mrs. Shiela Dixit and a young minister, Mr Lovely are there. Birju Maharaj's troupe presents "kathak yatra" and the dancers include Saswati Sen. The dances, the lights and the backdrop of the old ruins is wonderful. Birju Maharaj must be seventy if not more, but in the end when he demsotrates a few steps of the mayur dance, he is transformed. It is a memorable evening.

***

Burning Ravan

Saw the burning of Ravan in Delhi this time after I don't know, how many years. I think that the last time I must have seen it was when we used to go to DCM Ramleela grounds near Rohtak Road, 30-35 years ago. After that I had seen it in the TV. But to be there in the middle of the crowd, feeling the excitement and the anticipation, the first wave of heat as the effigy takes fire, the deafening noise of the fire-crackers... is some thing else. Mika was there with me and we cluctched each other's hands when the flames suddenly engulfed the effigy.

On the way back, near the temple, trucks with the Ramleela actors was passing. Ram and his sena were on one truck and Ravan and his sena were on the second truck. Even these kind of processions were such old memories and I felt thrilled in spite of myself.

The days are rushing past so quickly. Today I hope to go and see Anita. Rajouri Garden, where she lives seems so far away but I am hoping to travel by the Delhi Metro.

Took the metro for going to Delhi university the other day. The train is exactly the same as they have in Rome - they must be buying it from the same source! And the travel is quick.

***

Gaping hole in my being

On Sunday I am going to India. For 8 days. Meetings and appointments will eat away most of the time, and the remaining will go for shopping and chatting in the family. It is the prospect of the journey and my own ambivalent feelings about it, that I am thinking about.

Perhaps, I have completed my journey of being a stranger to my own land? The excitement of going back in the initial years, I still remember it. Waiting for months, counting the days, thinking of all the things that I was going to do. Call Munna, call Rahul's home, call Naresh, call Devender, see Rajkumar,... calling up on all the friends was high up on the list. So what is Ravi doing? Did you hear from Anil? Have you any news of Narayan? There was so much catching up to do.

Last year I saw Munna after 8-10 years. Rahul I had met him after ages. When we meet, all the words come out tumbling and rushed, in the beginning. And then they start to dry up. Perhaps, it is because there is no continuing dialogue, no exchange of things happening in our lives.

To visit old houses, old streets, is the same as meeting old friends. They have changed. Some times there is a completely new building. In Rajendra Nagar, all the old houses have gone, in their place there are 3-4 storeyed buildings and streets choking with cars, blocked with iron railings and no one seems to know me any more. The old shops are gone, along with the shopkeepers.

The circle of things that included familiar persons and places gets narrower each time. In the end, it is just an anonymous city with anonymous people and I am a stranger in my own town.

And there is hardly any excitement, no counting of days. Perhaps, it is because I am not spending enough time there, all these short trips, running around for work and not having time to spend with people? May be it is just this day, the rain and the autumn leaves falling down, and tomorrow, it will be all right once again.

This gaping hole in my being, I will close my eyes and it might go away. A bad dream.

***

Back to London

Came back yesterday evening from London. I was curious to see if the bombs have changed the city. Yes, almost everyone I asked, agreed that the city has changed, but I couldn't see the changes.

They said, there is no night life, nobody goes out in central London. Perhaps, Hammersmith is too far away from the centre but at 10 PM the restaurants seemed full, people were there in the bar inspite of the typical English rain. Even the tube was full as usual. But the train and tube services seemed to have worsened. Stansted express was a scandal. The publicity is hyperbolic as usual but the train seemed like a local train in Mumbai. Stopped every five minutes. The whole tube system seems to be coming apart at the seams. Bomb scares, maintainance, staff shortage, all the possible problems seem to plague it.

Yet outside on the streets, people were rushing around as usual. Tourists speaking different languges with their cameras clicking furiously seemed unchanged. I walked in the Banks area, and it seemed much nicer than when I was there 10 years ago. There were flowers every where. Sparkling new buildings with strange shapes, futuristic pubs in glasswalled structures, it looked wonderful.

I always stay in the same place. Must have stayed in that hotel for fifty times at least. The old staff knows me very well. It seems to have worsened too. Must be cutting costs. The breakfast is a pale shadow of its past and the timings are restricted. In the room, the hair dryer and pants-pressing machine are both out of order. The telephone does not work too. May be someone else would buy that hotel and improve it? It changes names and owners, the prices increase and services improve, then slowly, every thing comes down. Perhaps, its location is not good so that it does not get enough clients?

I remember the time there when they had found an IRA terrorist staying in that hotel. I had woken up during the night after a noise and switching on the light, I had looked out of the window. The hotel was surrounded by police with guns in their hands. They must have looked at me with amazement, nude with just wearing my undies, standing near the window, lighted from behind! My heart thumping, I had switched off the light and crawled back into the bed, waiting for the guns to start shooting.

Or the time when a car allarm had gone off around 11 PM and gone on and on for 4 hours, till its battery had exhausted. Couldn't believe that in London, there was no police or someone to trace the owner of a car to make it shut up and it had continued to make terrible noise in a thickly populated residential area for four head-aching hours. Worse than all the jagratas combined in Delhi.

This time, there was a fight. It must have been from one of the houses at the back of the hotel. Woke up in the morning listening to the women shouting, "Leave the house, leave, ....leave". Seemed like an old record stuck on the word "leave". At first couldn't hear the man. Then slowly the fight heated. 'Fuck offs' and 'sons of bitches' flew around till the woman started shouting, "Get off me, let me go. I don't want you. Leave me. Let me go now." Then suddenly there was silence. Probably he had strangled her. Or may be, he had picked his things and left. Who knows. Or, may be she had hit his head with a broom. I hope they don't call me as a witness.

My last image of London is that of a banner at the airport. It was the publicity of a bank. "24 hours service. Real people from UK answer you." Means, no Indian call centre here!

***